Released (Caged #3)(21)
I just didn’t know why Yolanda would do something like that. I knew she was pissed, and she had every right to be, but that just seemed low.
Swallowing hard, I tossed the journal on the table, grabbed all the money I had, and then went to the landlord to see if we’d be able to work anything out. He took the cash I handed him, thumbed through it, and then glared up at me.
“You’re a hundred short,” he said.
“Yeah, I know,” I admitted. “I was hoping maybe you could give me a couple more days. I’ll get it. I just need a little—”
“No,” he said simply. “I don’t do extensions, and you’ve been here long enough to know that. Get it all on time or get out.”
“It’s just that I lost my job, and—”
“No!” he yelled as he focused on me. “Not another f*cking word about it, or you can get out with or without the rent!”
I clenched my hands and had the feeling this motherf*cker was going to get the brunt of the aggression I should have been using in the cage tonight.
“Fuck you!” I yelled as I pointed a finger at him. “I’ve lived here forever, always been a good tenant, and I’ve never so much as been a day late before. You can give me until Monday at least!”
“No, I can’t and I won’t.” He leaned forward over the desk with one hand flat on the surface. The other hand was underneath the desk, but I didn’t think anything of it. “I don’t like your tone of voice, and if you think you’re going to threaten me, you can get the f*ck out. You can get out of here now, bring me the rest of the rent tomorrow, or get you and your shit the f*ck out of my building.”
He brought his hand from underneath the desk, and I was suddenly looking down the barrel of a sawed-off shotgun. Part of me wondered how I had managed to walk into a hillbilly horror movie, but most of me just went very, very still.
“I don’t make exceptions,” he said. “I know you think you’re some big-shot whatever you are, but I don’t care. No rent, no apartment. You’ve got until tomorrow at noon to hand me the cash or get your shit out. I’ll toss it on the street and change the locks.”
I started to open my mouth again but thought better of it. I didn’t think he would hesitate to pull the trigger if he decided I might come at him, and chances are he’d get away with it, too. He probably had before.
Backing up slowly, I held my hands up where he could see them and kept heading toward the door.
“You know what?” he added. “Forget it. Just get your shit out now.”
“Come on,” I said. I was very, very careful about keeping my voice low. “I’ve lived here a long time—you gotta give me a little bit. I’ll see if I can come up with—”
“No!” he snapped. “I don’t like your attitude, and I don’t care if you pull the cash out of your ass right now. I’m through with you. Get out!”
“Give me my money back, at least.”
“Fuck you,” he said with a sneer. “You have an hour to get your shit out before a group of guys a lot bigger and nastier than you come in there and f*ck you up the ass. We clear?”
A click from the shotgun ended the argument, and I hustled out of there as quickly as I could.
My heart was pounding though I didn’t think it had a whole lot to do with the gun pointed at my face. I felt like I was caught up in some ridiculous life-avalanche of crappy shit happening to me. I tried to figure out what I should do, but all my brain thought about was how much easier it would be to cope with all of it if I had a little smack in my system.
I walked into the apartment—not ours anymore, not mine anymore, just the apartment now—and leaned heavily against the door. I glanced around and wondered where I could store my stuff while I came up with the money to find another place to live.
“But I just cleaned the damn place!”
*****
The problem with being homeless after losing a job was that no one can get a legitimate job without an address. I couldn’t even properly fill out a f*cking application without one. And there was no way for an employer to call me with an offer when I didn’t have a goddamned phone.
I made twelve bucks helping people carry groceries to their cars until the grocery store manager called the cops. It was enough to feed me for a few days, at least. It wasn’t even close to getting to where I needed to be.
When I went to the hospital to seek out Dr. Baynor, I found out there had been some sort of family emergency, and he had left town suddenly. They didn’t know when he would be returning. I still had the little card for the therapist, but I didn’t want to call her. She didn’t know me from Adam, and I wasn’t going to call some chick head shrinker I had never met before and ask her for a place to stay.
I’d been on the streets for nearly a week, and I was just about to lose my mind. It was still early enough in the spring to be damn cold at night, and though Krazy Katie didn’t seem to mind me leaving my stuff at her place, I couldn’t stay in the same building without the landlord seeing me. Frankly, I was fairly certain he’d shoot me on sight.
Under other circumstances, I might have just let him. I couldn’t do that now though. I had to find a job. I had to think about Tria and make sure she got whatever she needed to be healthy. It was the only thing that had kept me going, but even my determination was beginning to wane. Part of it was the insanity of the situation, but another big part of it was the familiarity of the scene. I was back in the really shitty area of town, primarily because it was one of the few areas where I could get away with sleeping on a bench or in an alley without a cop or someone kicking me out. In the past, when I wasn’t squatting, I had stayed at a homeless shelter in the area, but the shelter was in the process of being rebuilt, and the part that was open was totally overbooked.